Fired U.S. Prosecutor to Speak on
Do the Right Thing at UC San Diego

April 2, 2009

By Pat JaCoby

David Iglesias, the former U.S. Attorney for the District of New Mexico who was fired by the Bush administration in 2007 for “performance-related issues,” will deliver the annual DeWitt Higgs Memorial Lecture at 7 p.m. April 20 in the Price Center East Ballroom at the University of California, San Diego. The event is free and open to the public.

David Iglesias

Iglesias’s lecture topic is Do the Right Thing – When Good Institutions Do Bad Things. He was one of seven U.S. attorneys (including Carol Lam of San Diego) fired shortly after receiving a positive performance review. His book, In Justice: The Scandal That Rocked the Bush Administration, was published in June, 2008.

The DeWitt Higgs Memorial Lecture examines critical contemporary legal issues and is sponsored by the Law and Society Program and Earl Warren College at UC San Diego in collaboration with California Western School of Law.

“Iglesias has been outspoken about the firings and the events that precipitated them,” noted Steven Adler, Warren College Provost. “He has been interviewed by Jon Stewart, Larry King, and Bill Maher and is featured in a new documentary film about the incident that is in post-production. He is currently involved as a Navy Judge Advocate General (JAG) in the prosecution of Guantanamo Bay detainees.”

Iglesias was nominated by the White House on Aug. 2, 2001 to the position of United States Attorney for the District of New Mexico and headed a panel that advised U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft on matters of homeland security.

One of the stated reasons for his dismissal by administration officials was dissatisfaction with his prosecution of voter-fraud cases. However, to complicate the matter, he “had been heralded for his expertise in that area by the Justice Department, which twice selected him to train other federal prosecutors to pursue election crimes,” according to a Washington Post article of March 19, 2007.

A review of Iglesias’ firing by the U.S. Department of Justice Inspector General in October, 2008, found that his dismissal had been politically motivated.

Iglesias served in the Navy from 1985 to 1988 as a JAG at the Pentagon and Naval Legal Services Office in Washington, D.C. In 1986 he was one of the members of the legal team that was the inspiration for the play and film, A Few Good Men, with Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson. The case involved an assault by Marines on a comrade at their base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The Law and Society Program is an interdisciplinary minor whose faculty comprises professors from UC San Diego’s humanities and social science departments and California Western. The undergraduates examine the role of the legal system and specific legal issues from the perspectives of a broad range of disciplines.

For further information on the lecture, contact Shamara Madrid at (858) 534-1704 or smadrid@ucsd.edu.

Media Contact: Pat JaCoby, 858-534-7404 or pjacoby@ucsd.edu